The present invention relates to an inspection system, and more particularly to a filter inspection system for primarily detecting the presence or absence of internal and end filter components of a multiple component filter assembly.
In today's cigarette manufacturing machinery, inspection devices have been proposed that inspect for missing cigarette filters and missing filter segments on cigarettes that require “combined” or multiple component filters. For the most part these inspection systems either inspect for the filter segment prior to the final assembly of the cigarette components, i.e., application of the tipping paper, or inspect only the exposed visible filter end of a completely assembled cigarette. Multiple component filters present a challenge because internal filter components are not visible.